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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26263537">thief without a home</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/onetiredboy/pseuds/onetiredboy'>onetiredboy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Penumbra Podcast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Brahma - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, Musical Instruments, Other, identity crises ofc, peter nureyevs depressing instrument 2: electric boogaloo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:35:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,813</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26263537</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/onetiredboy/pseuds/onetiredboy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Juno gets Peter a gift.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>148</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>thief without a home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tazmaster/gifts">Tazmaster</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this fic is a happy birthday to taz (@tazatouilles on twitter)!! happy 18th sorry this is late hehe :')</p><p>catch the 2 different things i projected onto peter with in this fic lmao... best part of writing fic. also partly inspired by convos in a discord server, thank you to ppl who helped me come up w this idea!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Juno. What is that?”</p><p>Juno doesn’t answer until he’s put the huge box on Nureyev’s desk. He spends some time shuffling, getting the box lined up perfectly symmetrically on all sides before he turns around, facing Peter, who is sitting on the edge of his bed.</p><p>“What’s what?”</p><p>Nureyev raises an eyebrow and cocks his head, “Would you care to explain why you’ve wrapped something up in bright blue paper and put it on my desk?”</p><p>“<em>Oh</em>,” Juno clicks his fingers like he’d forgotten, and spins around, “Oh, you mean this?”</p><p>“Yes. What is it?”</p><p>Juno turns back around again, “I dunno. You find out.”</p><p>“Love,” Peter says, raising his other eyebrow for good measure.</p><p>“Really!” Juno steps away from the bench, putting both of his hands up, “You wanna know so bad, have a look for yourself.”</p><p>Peter watches him step away with equal parts curiosity and suspicion. He looks back at the box. He half expects it to be some sort of trap, not that he’d expect Juno to ever do something of the kind. It’s only a few seconds before his curiosity wins out and he stands, walking to the desk.</p><p>The paper has little white writing in cursive. He squints at it, and then sends a look over his shoulder towards Juno, “Happy birthday?”</p><p>“Uh,” Juno says. “Well. You don’t have a birthday, so… I figured, hey, any day is free game, right?”</p><p>Peter feels himself smile as he turns back to the box, “I have a birthday.”</p><p>“Wait. Really?”</p><p>“Mmhm. A birthday of sorts, anyway. A day I consider the start of my life,” Peter starts peeling back a piece of haphazardly placed sticky tape, “Not that I’ve had much practise celebrating it.”</p><p>“When is it?”</p><p>Peter sighs, “Must everything be public knowledge, Juno?”</p><p>“<em>Excuse me? </em> It’s your <em> birthday</em>, Nureyev. I’m your <em> boyfriend</em>!”</p><p>“It’s stupid,” Peter says, and finally gives up on trying to do the paper neatly. He uses his nail to break through a piece of paper and starts ripping it off.</p><p>“What the hell could you possibly mean, ‘it’s stupid’?” Juno demands, “How could a birthday be stupid?”</p><p>Nureyev rolls his eyes and turns around, “It’s the day we met. November third,” he says, “Happy?”</p><p>Juno’s mouth shuts abruptly, with a punched out, “Oh.”</p><p>“Quite,” Peter says, and turns back around to the box on the bench. Some cardboard is beginning to show, words printed in a non-Solar language he doesn’t know. Tension prickles on the back of his neck. He hadn’t meant to actually let Juno know that particular fact, now or ever. He looks at the writing again.  Maybe it’s Assamese, it looks a little similar to Rangian...</p><p>“That’s…” Juno says at last, “Wow. Uh.”</p><p>“Then again, it’s always subject to change,” words spew out of Peter’s mouth as though propelled. “Who knows, maybe I’ll decide October fourteenth, or-- January is a nice time of year, how about January twenty-third?”</p><p>“I like November third,” Juno puts a hand on his shoulder from behind, his warmth ghosting against Peter’s body through his shirt, “It’s… kind of an honour you think so much of that day, is all.”</p><p>Nureyev spares a tiny glance at him, and then clears his throat, “Let’s have a look at what you’ve got for me, hm?”</p><p>He peels back the paper the rest of the way, and then can’t help himself but laugh. “Oh dear,” he says, lifting the lid on the box, “Did you run this past Buddy first?”</p><p>“What is she, my Mom?” Juno scoffs, “She doesn’t have to know. This one’s, uh… a little easier to learn. And a little harder for the Big Guy to destroy.”</p><p>“I doubt it’d stop him,” Peter says and he runs his hand over the neck of the guitar.</p><p>Peter’s brief affair with a violin had ended quite abruptly. He’d started learning while stranded on the desert island, and -- even he can admit it -- hadn’t been… a spectacular player, all things considered. Still, Juno had supported his efforts, and he’d poured in a lot of practise.</p><p>Too much, perhaps. Two weeks after they took off, Peter was practising in the lounge room. He was getting much better by then, able to play small pieces with only a few scratchy notes. And yes, perhaps, it had been a little late, but it couldn’t have been later than 2am when Jet suddenly stormed into the room, plucked the violin right out of Peter’s hands and crushed the thing then and there.</p><p>Peter had demanded that Jet replace it. Buddy had ruled in Jet’s favour. And so had ended Peter’s music career. </p><p>Nureyev reaches in and lifts the guitar from its case, “And you think I will somehow be more gifted with a guitar?”</p><p>“<em>Well</em>,” Juno says, and pries the guitar out of Peter’s hands. He spins it around, and puts one foot up on the end of Peter’s bed so he can rest the guitar on his leg. “This one’s different, because…” he strums at the strings.</p><p>Peter lights up, “You can play?”</p><p>Juno shrugs and grins in the way he does, somehow both confident and shy, “Yeah. Well. Not since highschool, but… I could teach you some basics.”</p><p>Nureyev steps forward, and places his hands on the guitar. He takes it gently from Juno’s hands, and then places it down on the bench.</p><p>“Maybe it won’t be your thing,” Juno starts saying, “But it was kinda dreamy, having you play music for me. If it’s not what you--”</p><p>Peter tugs Juno in by the waistband of his pants and kisses the rest of the words off of his lips.</p><hr/><p>Nureyev rolls over and presses a kiss to Juno’s chest. Then he lifts himself up on his elbows and presses a kiss to his lips, “I suppose we can’t lie in bed for the rest of the day.”</p><p>“Why not?” Juno complains, but Peter has already sat up and slipped out of the sheets. He kicks at the pile of discarded clothes on the floor, and decides it’s later’s problem. He walks into the walk-in closet.</p><p>Peter flicks through the clothes on Juno’s side of the closet for something comfortable. Playing his cards right on which of Juno’s clothes to wear doubles the chance of a second round, after all. He reaches out for a jumper he’s fond of and slips it over his head - because it’s comfy and, importantly, it smells like Juno does, and then he freezes suddenly.</p><p>A few soft notes reach his ears. The melody is gentle, both comforting and sad, and Peter Nureyev isn’t on the Carte Blanche anymore.</p><p>Or at least his mind isn’t. Something close to panic begins to descend on him, tightening like cold metal bars around his chest, and he is gripping the wooden windowsill of an office, feeling the wind in his hair as he stares out at…</p><p>Peter stumbles out from the closet. There are a thousand questions on his tongue, but he doesn’t know how to frame a single one. “What--” he says in Brahmese, and then frowns, fighting to switch to Solar, “What’s-- How do you know that tune?”</p><p>Juno doesn’t look up from the guitar, focused on the strings as he is, “You know, I dunno? It pops up in my head every now and again, and I just thought I’d see if I could play it. Why? Do you know where it’s--”</p><p>Juno looks up for the first time, and his playing stops.</p><p>“New Kinshasa,” he breathes, and puts down the guitar.</p><p>Peter hears himself let out a little laugh, an embarrassing sound. He seems to be moving at a delayed speed, his mind and body out of sync. Then he’s got Juno’s arms around him, and Juno guides him down onto the bed.</p><p>“Hey,” Juno says softly, “You’re here with me, Nureyev. It’s okay.”</p><p>“Yes,” Peter says, “Yes, I-- I know.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to trigger anything, are you okay?” Juno’s hands cup his face, and Peter turns to press a kiss to the inside of Juno’s palm.</p><p>“I am,” he says, and then looks back at him, “Can you… keep playing?”</p><p>Juno’s brows furrow together, “Is that going to be healthy for you? I don’t want to hurt you.”</p><p>“Please,” Peter begs, “I… I need to hear it again.”</p><p>Juno frowns a little deeper, but he sits back and then reaches for the guitar. He settles it on his lap, and after one last glance at Peter, he begins to play.</p><p>He stumbles over some notes, and some parts don’t match with the memory in Peter’s head, but that’s it, there it is.</p><p>A courtyard in New Kinshasa. A window a boy stared out of with starry eyes just before he lost everything. A sound that means… home.</p><p>He watches the twitches of the muscles in Juno’s arm as his fingers pluck at the strings. He watches the look of concentration etched into Juno’s face, at the tiny grimaces he makes when he makes a mistake. He watches as each of those things in turn begin to blur and waver until he blinks and tears fall onto the blankets between them.</p><p>Juno stops playing and looks up at him. “Peter--” he starts, but Nureyev shakes his head.</p><p>He leans forward instead, not caring that his face is probably wet as he guides Juno’s mouth to his. Juno cups the side of his face -- the angle is awkward, he’s trying not to drop the guitar, but it doesn’t matter.</p><p>Nureyev pulls back again, “Do you think you could teach me to play it?”</p><p>“Of course,” Juno says quietly.</p><p>Juno lets him take the guitar. They sort out how to adjust his grip - his left handedness complicates things, and then Juno does his best at trying to teach him.</p><p>Juno is by no means a trained teacher, and at times he has to guide Peter’s hands rather than use his words, or get halfway through a sentence and start over again. </p><p>“I just played it by ear,” he explains after adjusting a chord for the fourth time, “I don’t know the music, sorry, you’re gonna have to be patient--”</p><p>“Juno,” Nureyev says. “Thank you.”</p><p>Juno pauses and looks up at him, and smiles.</p><p>And Peter plays it eventually, sitting on the end of the bed while Juno sits on the floor and looks up at him with a wide, awe-filled eye. Peter feels the way the strings move under his fingers. For the first time, he feels as though he owns a part of his history. A part of his memories he can pull out from the depths of his mind and air out, shake off the dust, and experience in the real world.</p><p>He finishes the song and looks down at Juno, and feels a little more like someone Peter Nureyev would want to be.</p>
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